Hi Erin,
Something jumped out at me and in the way that dreams aren't literal but still have truth, I felt something very hopeful when I read it.
You said:
....this time I had the very clear understanding that I was intentionally trying to hurt myself....
And then next:
...I am destined to repeat this loop again and again forever.
My mind said, well, what if time isn't quite as linear as we think, and that even if this mental experience felt like Thought One which was then undermined, cancelled, or defeated by Thought Two...maybe it's not so? Maybe BOTH thoughts are in active dialogue (among others) with your deep inner life-loving self, and your mind is actually full of Good New Things?
But you noticed both thoughts, which allowed this to happen. What jumped out for me was seeing your post this way:
...I [considered I] am destined to repeat this loop again and again forever....BUT....this time I had the very clear understanding that I was intentionally trying to hurt myself.
Once epiphanies, understandings, window-opens-rational moments like that shed light into the mind, even if momentarily -- I believe that light doesn't go out again. (It can get obscured, but its energy is still there, like a light-seed.)
I am mixing metaphors again, but I think there are "thought-seeds" and you sowed one.
The old "doom loop thought" is about a mechanical future, and no matter what/how/where you think it, you are not a machine. It may be familiar but despairing/negative/hopeless thoughts are chlorophyll-free, emotionally. The doom loop thought is like a "styrofoam seed" -- made of something toxic, and no life in it.
So I loved reading (no matter what "logical" order it originally appeared in) your beautiful seed-thought:
I had the very clear understanding
Suddenly, clearly understanding what you were doing at the moment IN that moment? That's HUGE! Clarity and understanding are life changing. It's like...a crack in the dike, a seed coat splitting. It's not meaningless, that you had "the very clear understanding." It's wonderful. To me, it sounds like the kind of watershed thought that actually changes a life. (Watch for it. In small ways. There will be more.)
As small a seed-thought as that can heave up sidewalks, create extraordinary canopies, beautiful bark, swaying, sounds of wind, safe places for a child to climb, and beauty that is only more inspiring, the older it gets.
love,
Hops